The argument I'm hearing sporadically of 'McCullum may thrive in terms of run-scoring with the captaincy' is rubbish. If his own standards and his country meant anything to him, he'd get on and score runs anyway. Like Ross does.

Can anyone think of one of those gay Brangelina names for Hesson and McCullum? Messon has a ring to it

That's pure guesswork, and it's wrong. Ross is very good friends with Guppy, and he's probably the next most senior guy in the Test side. The likes of Vettori, Mills might be on Brendon's side but they're on the outer.

And isn't a captain's job to be slightly out from the crowd with the ability to make the tough calls and not be too much of a chum and create his own cliques?

The argument I'm hearing sporadically of 'McCullum may thrive in terms of run-scoring with the captaincy' is rubbish. If his own standards and his country meant anything to him, he'd get on and score runs anyway. Like Ross does.

Agree, McCullum has always been at his best batting with a free license. As test captain, I can only envisage him prodding, poking and being all out of sorts trying to bat to protect his wicket. So we may not only lose our best batsman in Taylor, but also set McCullum to play a style of game he's not suited for.

And isn't a captain's job to be slightly out from the crowd with the ability to make the tough calls and not be too much of a chum and create his own cliques?

Absolutely. So even if we give a points decision to McCullum for 'tactical nous', that's only one side of captaincy. Nothing worse for a young guy coming into a team than to find it's dominated by cliques and that other guys get ahead or retain their spots by being drinking buddies with the right people.

We don't know about how he runs the side off the pitch. By all accounts he is quiet and keeps to himself a bit. McCullum is probably the guy who takes charge off the field, dishing the sh*t etc. Apparently Taylor and Hesson don't see eye to eye, is this soley on a personal level due to Hesson wanting to give away the captaincy? We don't know.

Taylor seems a decent captain on the field imo, hardly anything to be worried about (like our batting).

This is a totally over the top reaction for our crap form tbh, and the outcome of it is going to be the worst to come out of it. That is a divided dressing room and potentially the lose of our best batsmen in Taylor.

NZC picked the worse time for this to happen, just when they were starting to look a little more promising. Their PR is ****.

The likes of Vettori, Mills might be on Brendon's side but they're on the outer.

I'm sorry, while I agree with most of your post, you're just wrong on this. You're kidding yourself if you don't think that Vettori will walk straight back into the team once fit. Also, he's an institution of New Zealand cricket, and his opinion would count for a lot.

As for Mills, the guy may suck in t20's, but he's still been our best odi bowler over the last 6 years, and has a guaranteed spot in the team.

Last edited by Bahnz; 04-12-2012 at 04:22 PM.

Originally Posted by HeathDavisSpeed

I can think of a list of Sydney Grade posters who would contribute a better average post than Bahnz.

That's pure guesswork, and it's wrong. Ross is very good friends with Guppy, and he's probably the next most senior guy in the Test side. The likes of Vettori, Mills might be on Brendon's side but they're on the outer.

So we reckon Guptill and Bracewell may be in the Taylor camp? Time for some complete speculation which is probably totally wrong:

Guptill and Bracewell were both 'rested' from the Sri Lanka ODI series. Convenient. Taylor felt 'isolated'. Overseas so perfect place for Hesson to apply some pressure to Taylor. Guptill and Bracewell also played poorly in the tests - affected by disunity within the team?

Who's benefited since Hesson arrived? Franklin has reappeared for one. Secondly an inordinate amount of faith placed in Oram in the T20 world cup - surely part of the Old Boys' network if there is one.

They couldn't claim that if Taylor doesn't end up touring. What odds on the SOS going out to Jesse Ryder if Taylor makes himself unavailable?

I'm guessing this will happen, and it will pretty much sum up the poor man management of NZC.

I'm hoping Ryder also tells them to suck it.

Originally Posted by SteveNZ

The argument I'm hearing sporadically of 'McCullum may thrive in terms of run-scoring with the captaincy' is rubbish. If his own standards and his country meant anything to him, he'd get on and score runs anyway. Like Ross does.

From a purely selfish POV, I'm hoping like hell the likes of a Martin Crowe gets in Taylor's ear about not making the rash decision of not touring at all. Crowe was of course in a similar situation many years back with Rutherford and then decided to just concentrate on being the best test batsman he could be. One could hardly blame Taylor if he does spit the dummy, but I'm hoping sanity prevails and at the very least we have our best batsman playing in SA.

This is worse than what Crowe had to deal with. You can say what you like about Ken Rutherford, but at least he was just a mere opportunist. When Crowe got injured, he jumped on the chance to be captain and refused to leave when Crowe returned (which, given how injury prone Crowe was in the final years of his career, probably wasn't a bad thing). McCullum and Hesson have carried out a coup, almost entirely in the public eye, that has humiliated and degraded New Zealand Cricket's biggest asset. It's a shambles even for this cricketing administration.

Don't squander the gold of your days making a shrine of cricket videos, trying to improve the hopeless failure, giving your life away to the Blockys, the Devciches and the Weerasundaras! Surrender your devout little cricketing heart to the inured agribusinessman.

McCullum and Hesson have carried out a coup, almost entirely in the public eye, that has humiliated and degraded New Zealand Cricket's biggest asset.

This is what pisses me off most about it.

Even if McCullum is the best choice as captain, the way they've gone about it shows total recklessness and disregard for team spirit and unity and the actual availability of the best batsman we've had for 2 decades.

What did they think would happen? Taylor would just relinquish the captaincy when a new coach came in?

John Buchanan, do your job. Dump that coach and salvage what we have left here.

That's pure guesswork, and it's wrong. Ross is very good friends with Guppy, and he's probably the next most senior guy in the Test side. The likes of Vettori, Mills might be on Brendon's side but they're on the outer.

And isn't a captain's job to be slightly out from the crowd with the ability to make the tough calls and not be too much of a chum and create his own cliques?

...agreed. Remember both Guptill and Bracewell were not picked for the early part of the tour for a couple of bizarre reasons. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to think that they were kept at home so that Taylor would not have a support network around him before being asked to resign.

I'm another lurker and long time supporter of New Zealand Cricket who has registered because I just have the need to rant. New Zealand Cricket needs to be cleared out. This whole thing is disgraceful.

Richard Boock was just on the Radio Sport and he exemplified what is wrong with the cricket fraternity. He claimed John Wright left as coach because he "didn't like filling out forms." He claimed that he had heard from players that Taylor had been swearing at them and that this shouldn't happen any more and that it was an employment issue. Minutes after he made these claims someone apparently contacted Brendan Telfar on behalf of Taylor (who must have been listening) to state on the record that Taylor had never ever sworn at any individual players but he had sworn on occasion in the dressing room. Boock's response was (paraphrased) "See? I'm right."

The old heads on the radio seem to be calling it as it is. Waddle sounded as fired up as I've ever heard him and Telfer was openly laughing at Boock's assertions. On the flipside Kent Johns is on the radio right now talking a load of rubbish. And I haven't listened to talk radio in about five years.